There is no way to equally judge another human being or bring back what the violation has caused equally. The attempt will lead to mistakes and cruelty. More insidious is the notion someone can bring justice. I bring this up because the smart men and women I know (asked 40) all agreed this is why they still believe in the religion they believe in. Some cited fear of death as number 2 but all said they believe there has to be justice from higher power ultimatey. And that this is the only solace they have in this world. They believe someone who took so much life, like a Dahmer, would have to be judged by something eternal. I said someone in war may take 100's of lives but this is judged justice because they did it under orders or for a "just" cause.

Justice does seem to be hard wired instinctual.Most social mammals show different degrees of abhorrents to inequality.Especially primates.

But essentially isn't the pursuit of real justice not possible? Calling it necessary means this will make those who deem the power to wield it, to better humanity, unjust from the beginning? Isn't justice another way of claiming superiority? Doesn't a despot in the world use it to claim there power? If we agree justice is not a noble pursuit and clearly impossible (like following the word of god), what laws or punishments should be changed or updated? How would you feel if a mass murder or child molester was treated with a kind hand, rather than the visceral feeling of gutting them like a pig and dancing in the entrails as they slowing die. I am the first to admit this sounds more like justice at a primal level. But should we be smarter than that?

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What do they say now when the release a rapists after 10 yrs and they rape again? What if we could make sure the rapist knows why he rapes and then don't let the rapist spread his illness to other people who may not have been habitual rapists to begin

Why not be sure by (a) removing from him the ability to rape and (b) separating him from other prisoners?

Well thats one reason to seperate out and really classify who is in the prison. That is a mental illness when they are inaware of the addictions powerful influence over them in an adverse way. The system is not at all set up for any of the solutions on the table up for discussion here. No one needs to trust anything. Trust is completely over rated. This is about sytemic changes that will allow for a person under the influence of their illness to be nurtured and nursed back to health. one thing you can't have is a lot of currenlty sick people reinfecting the patient. Or causing a different illness which could cause different symptons and make recovery at all impossible.

I agree but i think the first step is a systematic look at the laws we are sending people to jail for. Lets just take marijuana offenses which account for 2/3rds of the prison population issue right now. I am not making a judgement on if there should be a law but is it a correct law a fair law and does it work. We need to remove the monetary incentive to incarceration. From how police work the suspected criminals to how they are processed and finally we need to remove privatized for profit prisons. Correcting laws will automatically remove the profit because the prison population will plummet when correct identification and judges are allow to judge instead of mandatory sentencing laws. The whole issue beccomes less daunting when we know who we really need to treat.

But the burglar meets the rapist in the same jail sometimes the same cell. There is no way to know what they will learn or what they will do when they are let out. It';s liek quarantining the sick and letting the suspected sick come and stay for a while hoping they don't get the full on disease. Even if the rapist is in treatment for the rest of their lives that means the burgular also gets treated and the treatment is supported. I am not saying the treatments even exist right now, but something can be changed to end part of this cycle agreed?

"It's like quarantining the sick and letting the suspected sick come and stay for a while hoping they don't get the full on disease."

You secretly nailed the answer here. The way to change how criminals are treated is to prevent criminals from being created. An ounce of prevention as the saying goes is worth a pound of cure. People are now looking into violence from the perspective of disease transmission.

"IN THE PUBLIC-HEALTH field, there have long been two schools of thought on derailing violence. One focuses on environmental factors, specifically trying to limit gun purchases and making guns safer. The other tries to influence behavior by introducing school-based curricula like antidrug and safe-sex campaigns.

Slutkin is going after it in a third way — as if he were trying to contain an infectious disease. The fact that there’s no vaccine or medical cure for violence doesn’t dissuade him. He points out that in the early days of AIDS, there was no treatment either. In the short run, he’s just trying to halt the spread of violence. In the long run, though, he says he hopes to alter behavior and what’s considered socially acceptable." (Source)

"Violence, much like the great infectious diseases throughout human history, has been ‘stuck’ without lasting solutions. This isn’t because we don’t care enough, or because we don’t have enough resources devoted to it—but because we have had the wrong diagnosis. This has led to ineffective or even counterproductive treatments. Like infectious diseases, violence can be understood better scientifically, and the result must be a new strategy." (Source)

I agree that we need to change the cycle. The best place is at the beginning.

Oh man you hit a pet peeve of mine, teaching abstinance of any kind will NOT in any way help any issues. Like guns or sex or drugs. In order for those theories to work they would need to engage in not only religious dogma but the insistance on absolutes and scare tactics. Case in point is the use of reefer madness or abstinance sex ed leading to a huge increase in teen STD's and teen pregnancy across the board.

Iam now going to use the word holistic since it applies here. The beginning is only identifiable in a certain amount of cases. In the case of crime probably about 10-20%, maybe and I am being optimistic, and without a crime there is nothing you can do because being crazy or insensitive is not a crime. If you don't work on the rest of the issues at the same time it all goes to shit. It would be better to work from the top down in this case, since it would remove the infectious from the impulsive problem.

On deciding someone is not worth it anymore, I would remind you that a person who KNOWS they are not cared for in anyway has NOTHING to learn from or lose.

Did you even read those source links? What you are talking about has no relation to what I was saying. These programs are not abstinence programs. They are intervention and mediation programs used in disputes in crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Nope I think its the same can of worms. this needs to be a holistic approach. I will say that the more repeated violent criminals tend to be predominately from those with bad upbringings or bad events in children however not always at the service does it look like that.

The individuals who need treatment actually become clear when you remove systematically those who have been punished to harshly for a crime. How do you determine the punishment was to harsh? First you look at how variant the outcome of similar cases. so if one guy went to jail for 5 years for buying a bag of weed over an ounce, compared to another jurisdiction giving them a fine and community service. If the variances are obvious like that then the law should be looked at more closely. then look at the offense itself. I know of a rapist who went to jail for 7 years and a man who stole 10k from his clients as the accountant in a period of 4 years. the accountant got 12 yrs. Yes they went to different jails which is at least better but a rapist untreated get out with good behavior 2-3 years, the accountant 5 yrs minimum sentence. judges more than not have no choice the amoutn of time they give due to mandatory sentencing laws like 3 strikes. this way a politicain can say I am not easy on crime.